High availability and disaster recovery are key elements of a business continuity service. High availability protects against a single point of failure by introducing technical measures and related services that safeguard application continuity from a business perspective in case of occurrence of this single failure. The target is to ensure the maximum business continuity in the event of a failure by either avoiding, or at least minimizing, the unplanned outage.
Disaster recovery helps ensure that, in the event of a total failure of a particular data center, there remains the ability to ensure maximum business continuity by providing a secondary site. The target is to ensure the maximum business continuity in the case of a disaster recovery occurrence by introducing technical and organizational measures as well as procedures to allow recovery in the fastest possible timeframe of all the business functions that are vital to the customer. In contrast to high availability, disaster recovery is embedded in an overall disaster recovery plan that addresses and prepares not only the technical measures but also the organizational procedures for all involved parties.